MotoGP: Silvano Galbusera Replaces Jeremy Burgess

Last Thursday, the shocking announcement was made in the pre-race press conference for the MotoGP season finale at Valencia that Valentino Rossi was firing his crew chief of 14 years Jeremy Burgess.

The next question was who would be his replacement? Well, we didn’t have to wait long, as it was announced today that Silvano Galbusera is the man in place to try to fill Burgess’ rather big shoes, effective immediately.

Galbusera’s career in motorcycle racing began in 1979 – funnily enough the year Rossi was born - with Gilera, where he spent 14 years working on both road racing in the 250cc World Championship with riders such as Alessandro Gramigni and Paolo Casoli and off-road in African Rallies such as the Paris-Dakar with Michele Rinaldi. He made the move to Cagiva in 1994, working with John Kocinski in the 500cc World Championship.

In 1995, Galbusera began a 16-year tenure at Yamaha that lasted until they folded the tent and left the World Superbike Championship in 2011. During his time there he worked as both a crew chief and technical director in World Superbike and World Supersport, working with riders such as Troy Corser, Noriyuki Haga, Cal Crutchlow and Ben Spies. For the past two years, Galbusera worked with Italian Marco Melandri in BMW’s World Superbike team.

"I’d like to thank Yamaha and Valentino [Rossi] for this great opportunity to work close to such a multi-titled, high-level champion,” Galbusera said in press release issued by the team. “I’m happy to be back in the Yamaha family and to have an opportunity in such a successful team that is always at the top.”